Greens internal drama warms up

[fromorbit]

New long article looking at the drama inside the Greens over biology suddenly existing again despite their best efforts.

How the Green Party forgot the environment and was torn apart by trans rows
It was a party united by a single mission – to save the planet. But now the gender identity debate has left it divided and in chaos

https://archive.is/TOlNx

The article is already out of date as Zack Polanski of hypnotic breasts fame has just launched a leadership bid against Deyner and Ramsey.

Emma Bateman
It's no secret that big boobs Polanski wants the top job. He is a student politics slogan churner, a self server who distains women and wants misgendering misdemeanours to be grounds for expulsion from the Greens.
He is "LGB with the T"
Still NO DEBATE!

Pro-women Greens article on his background:;
https://concernedgreens.uk/watchlist/zack-polanski/

The existence of biology is likely to be a significant part of the leadership contest for sure so interesting to watch .

Ali Shahrar has launched another legal challenge against the Greens. Gardening needed.

May 27th is the date for Emma Bateman's legal hearing against the Greens.

On May 27th I am in court against Green Party in a case which will expose the contorted lengths the Greens go to in order to shut women up.

It isn't going to go well for the Greens given the Supreme Court ruling. This could be key moment in seeing the ruling's effect on politics and directly impact the leadership contest. It will also be probably be infuriating and hilarious in equal measure.

@SionnachRuadh True. Four million should help GPEW professionalise. If GPEW were still a green party I'd want to see a good chunk spent on policy development (particularly on closing the gap between the green vision of what govt and society would look like in a world where planetary constraints were respected and the politics as usual approach of every other party.

Greens in local and regional government haven't been particularly successful in plotting a path between politics as usual and an ideal future - at finding ways to work constructively within systems and structures that are set up to work against green decision-making to deliver meaningful changes and start to unpick some of the systemic biases that undermine green approaches to government and economics.

Hypnoboobs seems more interested in sloganeering than in thinking about larger GPEW cohorts on councils, in the Senedd and at Westminster could green policy in a visible, enduring and electorally positive way. That is a shame. The legacy of the SGP's spell in government (or even the LDs', come to that) is less substantial than their supporters must have hoped for (land reform being a partial exception), which suggests this is a challenge any radical party with aspirations to use power to take steps to revise permanently how we do government should take seriously.

ZP was on Sunday with Laura Kuensberg yesterday.

Lots of social media is lauding his MIRACLE plans for taxing the rich and seemingly humbling the hated LK (Corbynists never forget). He seems to have come up with some plans on investing to save. This is not new. It's called Keynesian economics, but the lad was obviously busy probably jobbing as a moshi monster in a shopping centre as a drama student than bothering with boring old economics .

Also money owed to the Bank of England doesn't count as real debt BC it's like owing yourself

nitter.net/JohnRentoul/status/1992689629380980958#m

That may have been a possibility six months ago, but thanks to the ZP membership surge, the party now has more money than it knows what to do with.

Are we sure about that? It's only £40/year to join but the low wage reduced rate of £13/year & unemployed/student concessionary rate of £6/year aren't going to raise much no matter how many new members they recruit.

Apparently they're now sitting on £4 million - that's just me going on what's being reported. It was certainly discussed on the Times politics podcast. Depends how many members are on full vs concessionary rates I suppose.

One interesting thing for me is how expensive it is to be a Labour member. They've got a £70/year standard rate compared to £40/year for the Greens, £39/year for the Tories and £25/year for Reform.

What happened to that scheme some branch members were being asked for, 30 x 30?

30 members in a constituency were asked to donate an extra £30/ month to generate a deposit for parliamentary candidates

Polanski on Good Morning Britain being tested on the feasibility of a recurring wealth tax by Ed Balls.

https://nitter.net/SaulStaniforth/status/1993604339693162962#m

His stock reaction is to say that economists who have actually looked into this, and found it only works as a one-off, are all compromised by mysterious capitalist forces. It's trumpian alright as it's the "alternative facts" shite that they come up with.

He says the Duke of Westminster can't move his estate, but according to Wikipedia most of the Grosvenor estates properties are outside the UK and this year he sold a substantial slice of his Mayfair portfolio to Norway's National Oil fund.

And I suppose you can tax property who ever owns it, but property has value in London because people make money doing other things, not because it is intrinsically more valuable than property elsewhere.

I've seen a few clips where he cited the duke of Westminster. I'm not sure if as a party leader he's now getting 'lines to take' where he can trot out factoids like that, or it's just something he's picked up. He's got a devoted following on the left already.

I just get grim foreshadowing of the way they all latched on to Jeremy Corbyn, and before that Nick Clegg, as coming to Threaten The Establishment, only to find themselves bitterly disappointed

I fear that Zack has fallen down the rabbit hole of Modern Monetary Theory. A key giveaway is that he's started to say the national debt isn't real.

I know why people on the left find MMT appealing, but it's the economic equivalent of Freemen on the Land.

A key giveaway is that he's started to say the national debt isn't real.

That's like me saying "It's so easy to spend too much. A plastic card isn't like real money."

Nevertheless if I don't repay those apparently unreal sums I get threatening letters from the bank. I'm pretty sure something similar happens to countries that default on national debts.

It's perplexing that George Monbiot still seems impressed with him. (Or is it? I still remember that guardian article where he said spectator sport was an unnecessary planet killing frippery apart from Frisbee

How sport is killing the planet https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2006/oct/29/features.environment?CMP=share_btn_url

Moonbat highlighted in the past that the root word for economy is that of ecology, and this is of a piece with the notion the green party used to major in, which is that you cannot run up a debt against the planet in the long term. How does MMT (I see that in posts and initially thought it was Magic Money Tree) square with this

"Moonbat highlighted in the past that the root word for economy is that of ecology, and this is of a piece with the notion the green party used to major in, which is that you cannot run up a debt against the planet in the long term" . This is a misinterpretation then by Monbiot. Economy and ecology share a root word, viz oikos or home; one being management of home and by extension city, country; the other being word or study of home and by extension country, planet. Economy predates ecology in usage though both have clearly been practised without being named as such.

Anyone running any Black Friday deals?

There's a good clip of him on The Rest is Politics which shows his financial illiteracy. It looks as though the full podcast episode hasn't been released yet.
www.facebook.com/share/r/17UYhXvRdB/

He's got a tendency to switch to Rallying Points hasn't he.

I'm assuming there's a green think tank that could do the policy work for him. Is he a fan of the circular economy like the Scottish Greens. It didn't seem to work out too well for them in practice with all the money spent on that bottle return scheme. I don't think he's a details man

Green Party leaders can't actually make policy; it's decided by members.

There's a PDC (policy development committee) but I'm not sure what state that's in at the moment. He's likely to be heavily influenced by a non - party group called Greens Organise.

Re-posting my own link to an article about leftwing entryism as it talks about Greens Organise:

Mainly of historical interest, but when I was looking for articles on Hypnoboobs's watermelon takeover of GPEW I came across this analysis (which is patronising, ageist and not entirely accurate) of the GPEW as a target for leftwing entryism.

Related interest:
A man in a dress who is a former Scottish Green council candidate who left that party because he was caught sexually harassing a thirteen year old girl was on stage at the Your Party conference. Full details in YP thread which has been on top form today:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5440730-your-corbynsultana-party-discussion-thread-part-2?page=11&reply=148856938

Pylons are good ... except in my area.

Green party fractured over Norwich to Tilbury line

https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/25632200.green-party-fractured-norwich-tilbury-line/

Interesting background
Inside Zack Polanski's Comms Strategy
Having amassed £4m in membership fees since Polanski became leader, the team is also looking to expand. The Greens currently have small, shared offices between Kennington and Vauxhall, though most people work remotely. The press officers – two full-time and four part-time – work from Stroud, Liverpool, Exeter and London. The party is now rapidly recruiting to fill temporary gaps while keeping an eye on longer-term hires.
Employing Anjula Singh as press manager – who advised Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the opposition and worked at the BBC previously – was considered a boon for the party. Singh has been accompanying Polanski on all major interviews since he became leader.

https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/inside-zack-polanski-comms-strategy

Times editorial
Zack Polanski’s Greens are surging by ignoring reality

The self-described ‘eco-populist’ is wooing the disaffected with his genial media persona but his policies are based on a fiction

The Green Party, once chiefly concerned with conservation and climate change, is turning increasingly red. On the economy, a favourite topic, Mr Polanski is heavily in favour of wealth taxes, advocating a 1 per cent tax on assets over £10 million and 2 per cent on those over £1 billion. He would also equalise capital gains tax with income tax.
Yet while such policies may be emotionally satisfying for voters stung by inequality, they rarely deliver the intended benefit. Instead they prove administratively complex and costly while causing high-net-worth individuals to flee to more favourable tax regimes, taking their contributions to the Treasury with them: a dangerous, coffer-draining “capital flight” that is already ­accelerating under Rachel Reeves. In this week’s budget, he earned a name check from the chancellor, such is his influence over certain sections of the Labour Party. Yet following his class war, or his high borrowing agenda, would be a dead end.
Conscious, too, of his growing fan base among the young, the Green leader has embraced an uncritically progressive agenda with zest. Ignoring the concerns of many in his own party, he rejected the recent Supreme Court judgment — which ­legally defined sex under the Equality Act as ­“biological sex” — calling it “thinly veiled ­transphobia”. That fits. The defining feature of his career so far has been the construction of attractively plausible narratives around fictional scenarios. Now he is making waves in politics, there is very little to suggest that has changed.

https://archive.is/lFh3A

Oh yeah, pylon anxiety is everywhere in rural and bucolic east England. If you want to see how deranged it gets look up footage of Griff Rhys Jones absolutely SEETHING at the prospect of a pylon being situated:
Not on his land

Not even in the village where he lives

But in a Location where he would be able to see it from a distance

https://www.suffolkenergyactionsolutions.co.uk/griff-rhys-jones-joins-celebrity-campaign-against-offshore-wind-turbines-onshore-blight/

Similar contradictory things are happening elsewhere. In Germany the greens put an end to nuclear power station upgrades meaning they're now burning more coal.

Australian greens have managed to overhaul a number of environmental protection laws as minority partners with Australian Labor but with a trade off to delay the end of coal mining iirc

Now, as regards the Greens and pylons...

I sometimes think a good solution to planning reform would be to relax planning restrictions, but only in areas that vote Liberal Democrat. Stick up some tower blocks in St Albans and see how they like it.

A similar approach might work with Greens who love pylons, except in their own areas.

The LDs planning lunacy is verymuch an artefact of their structure. Ed Davey could zipwire into the next GE with a purely YIMBY manifesto but every one of his local councilors would reliably have conniptions if any development were to be mooted in their back yard.

Seems to be a full interview with him now available

Not watched all of it, but the comments so far are split between "Zack has INTEGRITY and is MY PRIME MINISTER" and "man alive he hasn't got a clue what he's talking about"

Thanks for sharing this.

<a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/tIklD/www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/j/ja-je/james-baxter-derrington/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">James Baxter-Derrington
Zack Polanski is an economically-illiterate populist – just like Farage
Green Party leader’s non-existent grasp of the economy has just been brutally exposed

https://archive.is/tIklD

Trans liberation event in Leeds. Mothin Ali doesn't attend so they get a Green from Manchester instead.

https://nitter.net/sirwg202110/status/1995995235462132036